survivors – Page 5

“Tough kid” still shines

Chaim Kornfeld (photo by Shula Klinger)

In February, the Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation and Louis Brier Home and Hospital honoured Chaim Kornfeld. And they did so in the place he has especially dedicated his time over the last four decades: the Louis Brier synagogue.

Chaim was born in Hungary in 1926. His upbringing and education were Orthodox and, for the first part of the Second World War, his family were untouched. From the start of his education at Yiddish cheder, at age 3, he was a good student. Community life continued much as it had for centuries.

Outside the home, Chaim’s memories describe a tense separation between Jew and non-Jew. “My father always used to say, ‘When you see a Shaygetz, cross the street. Go on the other side.’”

Needless to say, young Chaim did not always do as he was told. “I took the beating instead – but I fought back, too.” He adds, “Especially at Easter time, they’d call you dirty Jew.”

It’s not hard to imagine a young Chaim’s spirited response. Even at 90, he is energetic and expressive in conversation. “I was a tough kid,” he says. His daughter Tova adds with pride, “He gave as good as he got!”

In 1944, Chaim was preparing to go to Franz Josef National Rabbinical Seminary of Hungary in Budapest. Then, not long before his 17th birthday, his family was moved to a ghetto with the other Jews of their town. Then came the trains.

Chaim, his parents and one of his sisters were sent to Auschwitz. On the journey, Chaim was permitted to fill a bucket of water for the passengers to have occasional drinks. He also took the dead out of the car.

On arriving at the concentration camp, Chaim jumped out. Greeted with ordinary scenes – “children playing, laundry drying” – Chaim’s mother figured she could work in the camp laundry.

Chaim relates how “an old man came up and asked, ‘Do you speak Yiddish?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course.’” The man pointed to a German official. “He’s going to ask you two questions. When he asks how old you are, you say you’re 18. When he asks you what you do, say you’re a farmer.”

Young Chaim approached the man with his usual confidence. Josef Mengele asked him his age and profession. Chaim answered as he’d been told. Mengele told him to go to the right. His parents were sent to the left. Before they were separated, Chaim’s father made a final request: “Bleib a Yid.” (“Remain a Jew.”) Afterwards, Chaim heard others say, “You see that smoke? That’s your parents.”

At Auschwitz, the Nazis stripped the prisoners of their belongings and identity, shaving off Chaim’s hair. He smiles ruefully. “I had lovely peyis, nice and curly.” Having only spent two weeks in Auschwitz before being transferred to Mauthausen in Austria, Chaim wasn’t at the camp long enough to get a number tattooed on his arm. He has not forgotten his number, though, and barks out “67655!” at an impressive volume, but not in English, or even Yiddish. It’s in Polish, as he heard it at Auschwitz.

Asked how he managed to maintain his sanity while facing death every day, he quotes Robert Frost: “I had promises to keep and many miles to go before I sleep.” But there’s more to it. Chaim describes how he kept his promise to his father, in spite of malnutrition and brutal treatment. “I always said, I’ll get out of here.”

He speaks with gritted teeth. “I never gave up. Even when I worked in a tunnel underground, I was mumbling a prayer. I prayed all the time to make time go faster. I knew the prayers by heart from a very young age. All kinds.”

Chaim describes a life of hard labour, misery and oppression. There were about 600 steps up the quarry. We “carried rocks on our shoulders, every day. There were dogs barking, soldiers pointing guns at us.” There was a pond at the bottom. If a prisoner fell down, he says, they would be pushed in.

Chaim found that he was the only one who remembered long tracts of the Torah. He led Kol Nidre in the camp, “all the others stood around me. I knew it by heart. I got a good education.” To lead a service in such appalling circumstances takes more than just education, however. It speaks to a capacity for leadership and clarity in a situation that is baffling in its cruelty.

When the prisoners were forced on a death march, Chaim was recuperating from an abscessed ankle. Although barely able to stand, he followed the advice of a fellow prisoner, who told him that if he didn’t leave the camp upright, he’d never leave at all. Limping in extreme pain, Chaim made it out but collapsed afterwards. When an SS officer raised his gun to shoot him, Chaim spoke up with his characteristic blend of optimism and boldness. Having been reminded of what a good worker this young Jew was, the officer permitted Chaim to hitch a ride on a passing wagon.

Until this year, Chaim was active in Holocaust education. In spite of the many letters from kids, thanking him for his work, these letters can be “painful,” he says. “The reminder is not always pleasant.” One might think that even a “tough kid” could tire of telling this harrowing story again and again, but Chaim isn’t flagging. “As long as there’s someone to listen, I’ll tell.”

After liberation, Chaim lived at the “internat” (boarding school) maintained by the rabbinical college in Budapest. Completing two years of high school in one under the instruction of one Dr. Kolben, Chaim still speaks admiringly of his teacher. “She was quite a lady. Very smart,” he says.

Kolben also taught them about the culture of Budapest. It gave the boys a chance to revive their appreciation of the arts, to leave them with images of beauty, after the horrors of the war. These included trips to the theatre in Budapest, to see Shakespeare’s plays. Their influence lives on today in Chaim’s memory. “To be or not to be, that is the question, whether it is nobler.…” He pauses to let me finish the quote. After staring, dazed, for an instant, I am relieved to find “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” bubble up in my mind.

photo - Chaim Kornfeld in his younger days — Chaim Kornfeld in his younger days. *(photo by Shula Klinger)*

Chaim ended up in a displaced persons camp, in Bari, Italy. The hungry residents were frustrated to find that the food stores were locked away. “He led an uprising and they opened the locker,” Tova says. “He gave an impassioned speech.”

After the DP camp came aliyah. “Someone came from the JDC [Joint Distribution Committee] to take people to Palestine.” Chaim arrived in 1949, right after independence, and joined the air force immediately. “I was in charge of a platoon of women. That was fun,” he laughs. “I told them, during the day, I am in charge. In the evening, you are in charge!”

Asked about his career, he describes being “a lawyer for 55 years; prosecuting, judging, the lot!” Indeed, Chaim was appointed to the bench. Having developed a habit of quoting the Talmud in his judgments, he earned the nickname “The Bible Judge.” He would make “off the bench decisions,” which were popular with the courts, Tova recalls.

Chaim had originally planned to go to engineering school but his English was not fluent enough. “It was so hard, so technical,” he says. At the end of his first year, his essay about George Bernard Shaw’s Candida got him a C-. “People who were born and raised in Canada failed that exam!” he says proudly of his grade.

His optimistic attitude was evident in his approach to work as well. As a lawyer, he was known for handing out treats at the courthouse. Known as “Candy Man,” he would move up lines of people waiting for their paperwork, greeted by out-stretched hands.

At the Feb. 25 Louis Brier tribute, Chaim was honoured with a special Shabbat service in his name. With more than 150 people in attendance, Chaim read Haftorah. As Tova, says, “like a bar mitzvah boy, beautiful.” Thanked by many for his work, he was given a Torah cover for one of Louis Brier’s volumes. Says Tova, “It was really lovely.”

Reflecting back on his survival, Chaim credits his Judaism for keeping him afloat. This is living proof of Viktor Frankl’s assertion that, to survive, one needed to seek a meaning to one’s existence, even in the camps. “I didn’t feel that G-d abandoned me,” says Chaim. “I never lost my faith.”

Indeed, he has kept a kosher home for all of his adult life. But survival takes resilience and a good deal of ingenuity, as well as faith. “We took empty burlap bags and stuffed them into our pyjamas, to stay warm,” he says. When he was starving, he ate coal. “I was my own doctor,” he says.

One might think these experiences would define him, but, when presented with the term “survivor,” he shrugs and grimaces. “Rachmanut saneiti,” he adds. “I hate pity.”

One cannot help but see the sense in Chaim’s attitude. Simply referring to this man as a Holocaust survivor would be reductive. He recently celebrated six decades of marriage to his wife, Aliza, and their four adult children all have successful careers. Still active at 90, he has built a reputation as a mensch: generous, respectful, with a buoyant spirit and a talent for relationship-building. And, even now, one sees the tough kid – the keeper of promises, the kid who took a beating rather than tolerate bigotry. And, the same kid who jumped off the train in 1944, ready to meet the eye of the man who held – and toyed with, tortured and destroyed – the lives of his contemporaries.

Chaim has only just retired. He still reads the Tanach in his office and attends shul on Saturdays and Sundays. He talks of keeping up with his hobbies: “Swimming at the JCC every day. Making my wife happy.”

Shula Klinger is an author, illustrator and journalist living in North Vancouver. Find out more at niftyscissors.com.

Writing Lives journals

Writing Lives is a two-semester project at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, in which second-year students are connected with local Holocaust survivors to interview them and write memoirs of their lives before, during and after the Holocaust. The project is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation. In the first semester, students learned about the Holocaust through reading literary and historical texts, and wrote a research paper on prewar European Jewish communities using the resources of the VHEC and Waldman libraries. This semester, students studied practical strategies for interviewing survivors and have conducted and transcribed their interviews. They are now in the process of writing the memoirs, which, when complete, will be presented to interviewees at a closing ceremony to be held at Langara later this spring. As part of their course work, students are keeping journals of their personal reflections on their experiences as Writing Lives participants. A recent journal entry was on the theme of multicultural relationships, and here are excerpts from three student journals.

One of my older relatives knew how to count in Japanese. She was not Japanese. My family is predominantly of Filipino descent. She only learned how to count in Japanese because she was forced to learn as a child, during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. I learned this pretty late in her life.

I wanted to ask my relative questions, and I assumed I would get the chance at some point, but I was never sure if it was appropriate to bring it up. Two or three years after I learned that she could count in Japanese, she passed away. I never got to ask my questions.

When I decided to take part in the Writing Lives project, I was thinking of my relative. I have learned that having unanswered questions about someone you care for can lead to painful regret. Because of my own family’s unknown history during the Second World War, I wanted to help another family learn theirs.

– Jonathan Pineda

“Some”

Some feel sad when they see pain,
Some feel fascinated when they see pain.
Some feel broken
Once they see a broken heart.
Some feel fire
And mock that broken heart.

Some reach out a hand
Only to say “got you man.”
Some reach out a hand
Only to say “let me help you man.”
Some are inwards
Some are outwards.

Some love to inflict pain.
Some love to inflict love.
Some grab a gun.
Some grab a seed.
Some ignite a fire.
Some extinguish the fire.
There are always two sides to a story,
Whether good or bad it has a history.

Where do these people come from?
I used to ask.
They come from us,
They used to answer back.
Now I stand with a shattered heart.
Now I stand with a broken back.

Seeing is something.
Hearing is intriguing,
Both are fascinating,
The hearts are something.

– Mojtaba Arvin

I have listened to survivors tell their stories a few times before. Two survivors visited my school when I was in high school, and we had a couple of survivors come to our Writing Lives class last semester. Those were really the only encounters I had with the stories of Holocaust survivors. My family is not Jewish, and were not persecuted during the Holocaust.

My paternal grandfather and his father emigrated from southern Russia in 1925 to

escape the persecution and violence they were facing because they were Mennonites, but we have no personal family experience of the Holocaust or anything that the Jewish people endured. Because I could not bring my own perspective to this course, I am lucky that I had an amazing partner who was able to bring insight into many things because of her Jewish background. Overall, this project has been really incredible. My two partners are so supportive, and I have had the most amazing experience interviewing alongside them and writing the draft memoir with them. This is a project that I will remember my entire life.

– Caylie Warkentin

Student’s first meeting with survivor

Writing Lives is an initiative at Langara College, coordinated by instructor Dr. Rachel Mines, in which second-year students are teamed up with local Holocaust survivors to interview them and write memoirs of their lives before, during and after the Holocaust. Langara students earn English or history credits towards a diploma or degree, but, more importantly, they get the opportunity to learn outside of the classroom setting, in the community. The course is a partnership between Langara, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Azrieli Foundation.

In the first term, students learned about the Holocaust through examining literary and historical texts. They wrote a research project on prewar Jewish communities, using resources from the VHEC and Waldman libraries, and they had the opportunity to meet with and learn from two of the VHEC’s outreach speakers, Alex Buckman and Lillian Boraks-Nemetz. This term, with guidance from Kit Krieger and other guest speakers, students have learned strategies for planning and conducting interviews with Holocaust survivors and, in mid-January, they began to record survivors’ testimonies. The following is an essay by one of the students.

I found a quiet corner of the library and took a deep breath. This was the moment; it was all happening now. I was about to call my survivor, code name “Chester.” I say “my survivor” as if he were a possession. I don’t “own”’ him … and yet, in a very short period of time, I will have to “own” his story. I will be responsible for taking his experiences and shaping them into a lasting memoir.

This was the moment of truth: the first phone call. It was now or never. I slowly dialed and had a look around – no one within earshot. I put my cellphone up to my ear, my palm sweaty with nervousness. It began to ring. I gulped. It rang again. “Oh no,” I thought. “It would be just my luck that he’s not home and I have to leave an awkward message, and what sort of first impression will that be?…”

“Hello?”

“Hi, uh, hello. Hi. Um, my name is Ashley and I’m calling from Langara College about the Writing Lives project. May I speak to Chester?”

“Oh, sorry dear, Chester’s not here right now. Why don’t you text him?”

“OK, sure,” I said with a smile. I was expecting a hard-of-hearing senior citizen and, in true 2017 style, I was being instructed to text instead. I took down the phone number and finished the call.

Gulp. Another deep breath. Time to text.

I punched in the number and wrote an introductory message to “my survivor.” I said that I’d call in the morning for a formal introduction. I nervously hit send.

I then spent the next 74 minutes checking my phone to see if I’d received a response. Eventually, it did come: “We will talk then.”

Relief. It had begun. This journey, this process.

The next morning, Chester and I spoke briefly. I told him a bit about the program and asked if he had any questions. The phone call went well. Chester seemed to have a comfortable style, a compassion and understanding that put me at ease; there were sprinkles of humour amid logistical details. Though the call was short, I immediately felt better about what lay ahead.

The following Saturday was our first meeting in person. My group and I met up early so that we were all on the same page and fully prepared for what was about to transpire. We sat across from each other in a small meeting room on the main floor of the school’s library. We were excited, nervous, tense, curious. We were all in agreement that we didn’t really know what to expect and that we’d do our best to tackle things as they came and we’d support each other as much as possible. I felt lucky to have such encouragement.

The time came; it was 10 minutes to the scheduled interview. I grabbed my phone and headed out of the library and down the hall. Chester and I had decided to meet by the Starbucks, which is close to the library entrance. Even though I was early, I wasn’t surprised when I saw a person with a head of greyish-white hair seated near the coffee shop. “That has to be him,” I thought to myself. As I approached, he turned around and I was greeted by the welcoming face of Chester.

We exchanged pleasantries and made our way to the meeting room in the library. I think we both may have been a little nervous, but there was also a sense of mutual understanding – a consensus that we were about to do something important: something private and meaningful, potentially for both of us, particularly for the survivor.

“First off, do you have any questions?” I began once we were all settled. One of my group members sat to my right, ready to take notes and provide support. Chester sat across from the two of us, but diagonally across the square table, so we were all huddled around its corner, quite close to each other.

“Well …” and we were off! The next hour flew by. The purpose of the first meeting was for introductions and initial questions to be sorted. We also asked for a brief overview of Chester’s story, a sort of condensed version of his life. In learning the scope of his journey, we’d be able to better shape questions and structure further interviews. Chester was incredibly giving and kind. And what a storyteller! Sure, we bounced around a little, as memories and stories came to mind, but the next interviews could be more structured, more chronologically accurate. This was our introduction, our chance to get a sense of “our survivor,” to learn what he’d been through and how his experiences had shaped him.

I must admit, I was particularly moved by stories regarding Chester’s family. The way he spoke of his mother, in particular, and his children: it was just lovely.

There were a few difficult moments, and that is to be expected. In future interviews, when we will go into greater detail regarding Chester’s life and journey, we now know when certain difficult experiences occurred and will be prepared. Well, as prepared we can be, I suppose, for the emotional moments that are to come.

At the end of our meeting, Chester mentioned that we may not have enough material for a memoir. Such a sweet, humble comment. I couldn’t help but smile.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I believe that we definitely have enough for a book here. You have some wonderful stories.”

And it’s true. The stories of love, survival, adventure, family, travel, loss, connection…. We’ve only begun the interview process, and I’m already moved by the trust that’s been shown. Our survivor is being so generous with his time and his story. I only hope that I can do this project justice.

Moments with Elie Wiesel

Robert Krell, left, and Elie Wiesel. (photo from Robert Krell)

I met Prof. Elie Wiesel in 1978. I was 38 years old. He was 49. Elie, as he insisted I call him, came to Vancouver to speak at a commemorative event. It was for Yom Hashoah, the day of Holocaust Remembrance.

He arrived Friday afternoon and I fetched him at the airport and brought him to our home for a few moments pre-Shabbat and then to his hotel. He had agreed to a press conference on Saturday morning stipulating only that no microphone be used. Elie was observant.

I moderated that morning. He was engaging, handled difficult and peculiar questions equally graciously, and made a deep and lasting impression on the journalists and religious leaders who attended. I learned that morning that his book, Night, a slim 120 pages, had once been nearly a thousand pages written in Yiddish and published in Argentina. How had he reduced it to its present size? By eliminating every paragraph without which the book would not lose its essence, and then by eliminating every sentence in those paragraphs that was not needed to sustain its narrative. Ever since, I have tried to practise that in my talks and writings.

Elie asked me to visit at the hotel on Sunday for breakfast and we ended up talking all day. That evening, he spoke to an audience of 500. I had the honor of introducing him. I used two minutes. How long does one need to introduce Wiesel? He was known to all, even though he had not yet received the Nobel Peace Prize; that was to come in 1986. His lecture that evening was astonishing. One could listen to him forever, one of the few speakers in the world who commands attention and seldom, if ever, loses his audience.

We remained friends. He was the kindest, gentlest, wisest person in my life. And he always made time for me although he was also the busiest and most prevailed upon person imaginable.

So, I took it upon myself to do two things. One was to call him from time to time and briefly visit when I was in New York. Famous people sometimes have no one who inquires as to their own lives. I did not ask him for anything unless the idea began with him. No demands, requests, or favors. The other was to assist wherever I could with whatever little I could do. For example, he asked whether I could arrange for him to be in touch with Rudolf Vrba, one of only four or five escapees from Auschwitz and the author of the Vrba-Wetzler Report (Auschwitz Protocols) warning of the imminent deportation of Hungarian Jews in 1944.

Vrba lived in Vancouver and I knew him well. Elie and Rudi subsequently corresponded for years and I can only guess that some of it concerned the fact that the Wiesel family was not informed by those who received the report in Hungary when there was still a chance to flee into the nearby Carpathian Mountains. Did they ever meet? I offered Elie the opportunity. His response, “I do not think I can look into his eyes.”

One time, when in New York, I received Elie’s return call. Yes, he had time for me to have a brief visit on Monday morning. I went to his home and we caught up for perhaps a half hour. During that time, he excused himself only once, to take a call from the White House. Presidents, secretaries of state, governors and senators, all sought his counsel. He often flew at short notice to speak, to warn, in the midst of various crises around the world.

It was close to Passover. He asked who was traveling with me and I told him, my wife Marilyn and our oldest daughter and granddaughter. Elie was upset not to greet them and he insisted we all visit the next Thursday so he could personally wish them a happy Pesach. How he made time in his wildly busy schedule, I will never understand.

I saw Elie speak in Israel at the 1981 World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors at Lohamei HaGeta’ot (the Kibbutz of the Ghetto Fighters) and at the closing ceremonies with then-prime minister Menachem Begin. While in Los

Angeles in 1982, I heard him speak at Cedars-Sinai Hospital on “the Holocaust patient” and on “talmudic tales” at UCLA Hillel House. Spellbinding.

For the very first International Conference of Child Survivors and Their Families – the 1991 Hidden Child Foundation/Anti-Defamation League conference – the New York-based committee asked if I could convince Elie to speak. Since Elie seldom said no if he was able to attend, wherever in the world he was needed, this request for my involvement was puzzling. After all, this was New York, his home and the site of the gathering. But he had declined. My guess is that the situation had become complicated by competing factions.

I called him and reminded him that this was “the gathering of the children.” Where else would he want to be? He graciously agreed to give the closing address. I introduced him on the closing night and wondered out loud how it was possible that I had heard him lecture at Yale, in Israel, New York and Los Angeles. Somehow, wherever he was, I found him. I must be his groupie! I certainly never missed an opportunity to hear him and to learn from him.

In 1998, in New York, Elie presented me with the Elie Wiesel Holocaust Remembrance Medal for my work in Holocaust education, my psychiatric contributions to the care of Holocaust survivors and the founding of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Elie had visited the VHEC and served on its international advisory council along with Irwin Cotler, Yaffa Eliach and Sir Martin Gilbert. My family was there and my children all came to know him better. His loving presence is seared into their memories. Children, for him, were like a magnet. All who wrote to him received a personal response. How he managed this, in between teaching at Boston University, speaking around the world and publishing at least one book every year, I do not understand. But that is what he did.

In 2008, I went to Boston to celebrate his 80th birthday, which consisted of a three-day Festschrift devoted to his scholarship and writings, as well as a tribute concert.

Although surrounded by his friends and fellow scholars, I found him sitting alone in the front row and joined him. At one point, I turned to him, “Elie, what is it like to hear all these scholars speak about your contributions all day long?” His response, “I am a good listener.” And, indeed, he was. He listened attentively, to individuals and to humanity.

I nominated Elie for an honorary doctorate from the University of British Columbia and, although he was still recovering from open heart surgery (and wrote a book Open Heart), he traveled to attend the 2012 ceremony and to participate in An Evening with Elie Wiesel, held at the Orpheum theatre, attended by some 3,000 people. Our cab driver said, “Oh, look, Elie Wiesel is speaking.”

As the interviewer for the evening’s proceedings, I asked questions, some “naïve,” as in “Why remember such awful events?” referring to the Shoah.

Elie’s response: “How can you not? Memory is part of who you are, your identity. I have so many wonderful memories of my family and being in shul and it’s all I have now of my family except my two surviving sisters, of whom one has since passed on. Without memory, who would I be? The moments are so important.”

“Elie,” I asked, “you were asked to be the president of Israel. Can you tell us about this?” He answered that the thought had tormented him. How could he turn down the highest honor that could ever be bestowed upon him? He felt he was letting down the state of Israel that wanted him and his leadership. But, he explained, he was without political experience and all he really has are words which, as a politician, would no longer be his. “And besides,” he joked, “my wife would have divorced me.”

“How do you choose the language in which you write?” (Elie speaks Hungarian, Romanian, Yiddish, Hebrew, French and English.) “I prefer the eloquence of French, which is the easiest for me. And, sometimes, my choice is determined by what I am writing about. And I like to write to classical music, preferably a quartet, as an orchestra is too distracting.”

“What message would you send to our young people here tonight?” His response, “Your life is not measured in time and years. It is a collection of moments. You will look back and have so many moments in time that remain fresh, memorable and meaningful. I would tell all of you young people in the audience to enjoy all these moments in time. Being here in Vancouver this weekend has been one of those moments for me.”

With his passing, I shall be without more such moments with him. His death leaves an enormous void, for his moral strength and inspiration will be missing from all who benefited. We must resolve to step up and commit to continuing to learn from and emulate this remarkable human being who returned from the depths of despair and loss to provide a measure of hope.

I urge you to read Night and Elie’s brilliant memoir in two parts All Rivers Run to the Sea and And the Sea is Never Full. Having absorbed at least these books, you may then reflect upon, and hopefully act upon, the lessons learned. They will last you a lifetime.

Dr. Robert Krell is professor emeritus, department of psychiatry, University of British Columbia, distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and founding president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, in whose newsletter, Zachor, this article has also been published.

More survivor support

It was announced on July 29 that Holocaust survivors in Canada will now receive more aid to help them cope with financial burdens of basic needs such as food, medicine, medical care and living expenses.

The Azrieli Foundation has partnered with the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) to provide supplemental funding to Holocaust survivor programs that the Claims Conference established and has supported for two decades.

For 2016, the Azrieli Foundation is providing a total of $457,500 to four organizations to provide emergency financial assistance to Holocaust survivors: the Cummings Centre for Seniors in Montreal, Jewish Family and Child Service of Greater Toronto, Jewish Family Services of Ottawa and Jewish Family Service Agency in Vancouver.

Azrieli’s funding will add to the $23 million that the Claims Conference will distribute to 12 organizations throughout Canada, including the aforementioned four, for a wide range of services that aid survivors. The Claims Conference funds home care, medical care, medicine, food, transportation, emergency assistance and socialization for 3,000 survivors throughout Canada.

“The Azrieli Foundation has been an immensely valuable partner, working cooperatively with the Claims Conference and contributing to the welfare of Holocaust survivors in their time of need,” said Sidney Zoltak, a member of the Claims Conference board of directors and co-president of Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants. “We wish to thank the Azrieli Foundation, not only for this generous contribution but also for the important project it oversees publishing survivors’ memoirs.”

The Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program was established by the Azrieli Foundation in 2005 to collect, preserve and share the memoirs and diaries written by Holocaust survivors who came to Canada.

Organizations receiving the Azrieli funding for survivor services will report on their use of the grants through the Claims Conference online system, eliminating the need for the Azrieli Foundation to develop its own system for tracking its funding.

The Azrieli Foundation supports a wide range of initiatives and programs in the fields of education, architecture and design, Jewish community, Holocaust commemoration and education, scientific and medical research, and the arts. The foundation was established in 1989 to realize and extend the philanthropic goals of David J. Azrieli.

The Claims Conference (claimscon.org) represents world Jewry in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. It administers compensation funds, recovers unclaimed Jewish property and allocates funds to institutions that provide social welfare services to Holocaust survivors and preserve the memory and lessons of the Shoah.

Mourning Elie Wiesel

Dr. Elie Wiesel was motivated by his experience as a survivor of the Holocaust to become one of the world’s foremost advocates for social justice and human rights. He was also a friend to members of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre community and we mourn his passing. In his writing and his activism, he gave voice to the experiences of survivors but, as he acknowledged, also saw it as his responsibility to represent those who did not survive.

Wiesel and Robbie Waisman, a past president of the VHEC, were among the 426 “Boys of Buchenwald” liberated on April 11, 1945, and began their post-Shoah lives together at a facility in France.

“We had a common bond,” Waisman said. “On the 11th of April, I usually go into my office and call some of the boys. Elie was part of it. There’s so much that I shared with him.

“The world lost an irreplaceable human being.”

Dr. Robert Krell – recipient of the Elie Wiesel Holocaust Remembrance Medal for his work in Holocaust education, psychiatric contributions to the care of Holocaust survivors, and his role as founding president of the VHEC, which Wiesel visited – became friends with Wiesel over several decades.

“He was the kindest, gentlest, wisest person in my life,” said Krell. “And he always made time for me, although he was also the busiest and most prevailed upon person imaginable.”

Wiesel once said: “There is much to be done, there is much that can be done.” And the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre commits to continuing the work that defined his life’s mission.

The VHEC will honor the life and work of Elie Wiesel during our annual High Holidays Cemetery Service. The commemoration will take place at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 9, at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery, 2345 Marine Dr., New Westminster. Everyone is welcome.

The service, held annually on the Sunday between the High Holidays, affords participants the opportunity to mourn those who perished during the Holocaust at this symbolic gravesite.

לא שוכח

ביקור לרה”מ ג’סטין טרודו במחנה ההשמדה אושוויץ. (צילום: auschwitz.org)

ראש ממשלת קנדה, ג’סטין טרודו, לא שוכח את זכרם של קורבנות השואה והניצולים ממחנות ההשמדה. לאחר ועידת הפיסגה של חברי נאט”ו שנערכה בסוף שבוע שעבר בווארשה פולין, הגיע טרודו ביום ראשון כמתוכנן מראש לביקור ארוך באתר של מחנה ההשמדה אושוויץ- בירקנאו. את טרודו ליוו שר החוץ, סטפן דיון, השרה לשיתוף פעולה בינלאומי, כריסטינה פרילנד, ניצול מחנה אושוויץ, נייט לייפציגר, הרב אדם שאייר, המשמש חבר מועצת הרבנים של מונטריאול, ומנהל מוזיאון אושוויץ, פיוטר צ’יווינסקי. לייפציגר בן ה-88 נולד בצ’ורזו פולין ב-1927 ובגיל 11 הועבר למחנה אושוויץ עם משפחתו. שם איבד את אימו ואחותו שנשרפו בתאי הגזים. הוא ואביו ניצלו לאחר שהאב הצליח לשכנע קצין אס. אס להעבירו לקבוצה של הפועלים שעבדו במקום. לייפציגר היגר לטורונטו בשנת 1948 עם אביו עת היה בן 21. הוא הוציא תואר בהנדסה ושימש כל העת אחד מראשי הקהילה היהודית של טורונטו.

באמצעי התקשרת בקנדה פורסם בהרחבה דבר הביקור הראשון של טרודו באושוויץ, והביקור עצמו זכה לסיקור נרחב מאוד. טרודו ביקש לראות מקרוב את מה שנשאר מאחד הפרקים האפלים ביותר בתולדות האנושות. כמליון ומאתיים איש נרצחו באושוויץ- בירקנאו שבדרום מערב פולין ומרביתם היו יהודים.

טרודו ביקר בחלק גדול של התערוכה המוצגת במוזיאון הממלכתי, שכוללת צילומים של יהודים שהגיעו ברכבות מהונגריה, ציוד שנבזז מהיהודים ואת המבנה שאיחסן את תאי הגזים. לאחר מכן הוא צעד ליד מסילת הרכבת ונגע בקרונות שהובילו את הקורבנות למחנה. טרודו עם כיפה לראשו בחלק מהביקור עבר גם ליד הריסות תאי הגזים, בהן נהרגו אמו ואחותו של לייפציגר ושם לא יכל לעצור את דמעותיו. הוא אף קרא את תפילת יזכור באנגלית. טרודו הניח זר לזכר הקורבנות של הנאצים. ראש הממשלה הקנדי לא אמר מילה ורק דמע מספר פעמים, ובסוף הביקור חיבק את לייפציגר שנשק על לחייו. הביקור הארוך נמשך כמעט שלוש שעות. לאחריו כתב טרודו בספר האורחים של המוזיאון, את הדברים הבאים: “התרגשתי מאוד לבקר באושוויץ ובירקנאו. האנושות חייבת ללמוד לאהוב את ההבדלים בינינו. היום אנו עדים על היכולת האנושית בביצוע אכזריות מכוונת ורוע. נקווה שהיותנו עדים ליכולת של האנושות לבצע מעשים רעים שכאלה, רק תחזק את המחוייבות שלנו שלא לאפשר עוד לעולם לחשיכה שכזו לנצח. מדובר באחד הפרקים הגרועים ביותר בהיסטוריה האנושית ואנחנו לעולם לא נשכח זאת. זה המקום להזהיר בפני חוסר סובלנות ולהציע מסר של אהבה”.

לייפציגר אמר בראיון לאחר הביקור עם טרודו: “לא חשבתי שאשרוד את המחנה, שלא לדבר לראות את ראש ממשלת קנדה צועד כאן. לא הייתה שום דרך שיהיה לי עתיד. והיום אני חוזר לכאן לאחר 73 שנים עם ראש הממשלה של קנדה הנפלאה. טרודו הוא מנהיג רהוט שלוקח את קנדה לכיוון חדש. ניסיתי להראות לטרודו מה בני אדם עשו לבני אדם. השנאה הזו שהניעה קבוצה של אנשים לרצוח אנשים אחרים. שנאה כזו ממשיכה להתקיים בעולם גם כיום, ומיעוטים מופלים לרעה ונרצחים. טרודו קיבל את המסר שלו לזכור את העבר, תוך כדי עבודה להגיע לעתיד טוב יותר. הוא בכה איתי, הוא הזיל דמעות איתי. זה הביטוי הגדול ביותר של הבנה ורגשות שהוא היה יכול לעשות עבורי”.

טרודו הוא ראש הממשלה השלישי של קנדה שמבקר אושוויץ- בירקנאו. קדמו לו ז’אן קרטיין וסטיבן הרפר שטרודו החליפו.

We must keep trying

No reasonable people contend that the Holocaust did not occur. However, a great many assert that it has been considered enough, that it is time to put the past behind and effectively close the book on that era. Similarly, discussion today about the Holocaust is likely to elicit a sort of comparative or competitive response: “The Jews are not the only people who have suffered,” or something similar. While such assertions are almost tautological in their obviousness, they betray a different sort of exceptionalism around the Holocaust: the Jewish people are not the only group in history to have suffered, but they are the only ones today being told to buck up and shut up about it.

Somewhere between these two responses – outright denial and exasperated acknowledgement – is a large swath of indifference. A great many people in Canada and elsewhere are aware of the history of the Holocaust, express appropriate responses to it and may utter rote pieties about preventing history from repeating itself. As a civilization, though, all of these responses have so far led to an unsatisfactory status quo.

Elie Wiesel, who died Saturday, believed that understanding the Holocaust is key to the crucial need to understand human capabilities for evil and possibly to provide its antidote. If Wiesel’s formula is correct, the briefest glance at the headlines today is all the proof necessary to show we have thus far failed to consider and understand that terrible history.

For decades, Wiesel was not only a global voice for survivors, but a sort of moral compass for a world that has not learned the overarching lesson of the Shoah. Speaking out again and again on issues of contemporary injustice and genocide – though some advocates for Palestinians have contended that he wasn’t as vocal on that issue – Wiesel at the same time expressed regret that his interventions should be necessary.

In an interview with the Independent in 2012, Wiesel lamented that all his efforts and those of other survivors have failed to create the ideal world free of hatred and genocide.

“Maybe, deep down, all of us who have survived have had a feeling, if we told the story, the world would change, and the world hasn’t changed,” he said. “Does it mean that we did not tell the story? Or not well enough? Simply, we did not find the words to tell the story? Had we told the story well enough, maybe it would have changed the world? It hasn’t changed the world.”

The outpouring of grief over the passing of Wiesel is the appropriate response to the loss of a great individual. But it also reflects a larger lament; it is a reminder that the generation of eyewitnesses is diminishing. For many of us – and for the world – Wiesel was the face of the survivor, the voice of the Holocaust experience. His unflinching writing on the subject defined the discipline of the eyewitness Holocaust narrative. Not only was Wiesel able to articulate and validate the experiences of survivors who could not express themselves for various reasons, more importantly, as he himself acknowledged, he had an obligation to those who did not survive.

It is this same sense of obligation that motivates survivors to regularly make the emotionally exhausting effort to share their experiences with audiences, particularly young people. As Wiesel acknowledged, the world has not responded adequately. But, in the same interview, he said failure would have been to not try.

When Wiesel was recognized in 1986 with a Nobel Prize in literature, it was a recognition of his contribution, certainly, but it was also an affirmation for all survivors – indeed, for all of those whose identities attracted the Nazis’ genocidal hatred – that their experiences were valid, legitimate and incontestable.

When Wiesel’s book Night was published in English in 1960, it was at the start of a global conversation of the Holocaust and its meaning for humankind. Wiesel rightly hoped, but perhaps should not have expected, that a catastrophe of this magnitude would be adequately understood or its lessons assimilated in the comparatively short span of a human lifetime. He was correct that understanding the Holocaust is a key to humanity’s future. By their actions, Wiesel and all the survivors who share their lived experiences have helped to lay a foundation for a world in which the key to peace and a better future can emerge. As the eyewitness survivors pass that responsibility along to the rest of us, it is our ambitious mission to build on that foundation and to extend their calls of compassion, humanity and reflection to a world in great need of perfecting.

Honorary degree for Frimer

Linda Frimer was honored earlier this month by the University of the Fraser Valley for her artistic, humanitarian and philanthropic contributions and accomplishments. (photo from UFV)

For Linda Frimer, art is a form of reconciliation, and creativity a means of expressing the love within us all. The Vancouver artist has been sharing her art to heal, help worthy causes, and reconcile nature and culture for more than 35 years. In recognition of her artistic, humanitarian and philanthropic contributions and accomplishments, Frimer received an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University of the Fraser Valley at its June 2 afternoon convocation ceremony at the Abbotsford Centre.

Born in Wells, B.C., and raised in Prince George, Frimer connected with nature early on, and it informed her artistic development from the start. “I always had a pencil in hand and was allowed to roam the forest freely as a young girl,” she recalled.

Born a few years after the Second World War ended, she heard the adults in her family whispering about the devastation of the Holocaust. Even decades before the war, her family faced hatred and expulsion. Her grandfather fled Romania during the pogroms in the late 19th century, becoming one of the “footwalkers” roaming Europe, then following the Grand Trunk Railroad in Canada to its terminus in Prince George, where he became a merchant.

“I was too young to understand it all, but I knew something very bad had happened,” said Frimer. “I was a highly sensitive child, and absorbed the pain and anguish that others were carrying. I turned to nature for healing and reconciliation. I would enter the forest with a sense of awe and wonder. It’s what unites all people. When we suddenly see a magical tree or a sunset that leaves us breathless, that wonder belongs to everyone. I’ve always wanted to bring together the worlds of nature and culture. They are all connected, and recognizing that interconnectedness facilitates healing.”

Compelled by a desire to reflect the pain of her community and work towards healing, she created many works of art examining this theme. She co-founded the Gesher (Hebrew for Bridge) Project, a multidisciplinary group that helped Holocaust survivors and their children express their traumatic experiences through art, words and therapy.

Reflecting on the project during a talk she gave to the Canadian Counseling and Psychotherapy Association, she noted that creative expression is a critical component to healing. “I’ve done work that reflects my culture and my people and their plight, but I don’t want to get caught in the dark places. I want to share reverence between all cultures. I want to bring light and love to the forefront.”

From an early age, Frimer felt an affinity for the aboriginal people she grew up near in rural British Columbia. Her connection became more formalized when she befriended Cree artist George Littlechild (also a UFV honorary degree recipient). The two felt an immediate connection through their interest in incorporating family and history into their art and their use of vibrant colors. They have collaborated to produce art shows presented in venues such as the Canadian consulate in Los Angeles, and produced a book titled In Honor of Our Grandmothers.

“Both of our peoples have been through so much that we felt a real connection,” explained Frimer. “Growing up, I felt a real sense of ‘otherness’ and not fitting in. Many aboriginal people can relate to that, too.”

Frimer’s affinity to nature has led to her supporting many environmental causes. Her paintings for the Wilderness Committee, the Trans-Canada Trail, the Raincoast Environmental Foundation and other groups have raised funds for wilderness preservation, and also raised awareness of threatened forests and ecosystems.

“I love my environmental work because I know that’s where I can make a difference,” she said. “I am committed to helping to preserve endangered species and ecosystems, as well as helping people at risk or in crisis.”

Frimer spent her 20s raising her children and developing her artistic skills by finding mentors with whom to study. She didn’t begin her formal training until she was 33, when her last child started school. She then finished a four-year degree at Emily Carr in three years, receiving credit for her prior learning and artistic work.

More than three decades into her career, Frimer’s paintings and murals can be found in galleries, synagogues, churches, retirement centres, hospitals, hospices, schools, transition houses, corporate offices, and public and private collections. She has been very prolific but says it’s been easy to create so much art because she feels she is merely a vessel for a strong creative force. “It’s like joy coming through me, rather than me making it happen,” she said.

Frimer has received many accolades, honors and titles, but said her favorite title is “Grandma.” She and her husband Michael raised their blended family of eight children and now enjoy the company of nine grandchildren. “It’s profoundly important, especially for the Jewish people, who have lost so much, to rebuild the family we’ve lost and share reverence with others who have had similar losses,” she said.

Still, receiving an honorary doctorate is a special distinction for her. “My parents would have been extremely proud, and I know that my husband and children will be too,” she said before the convocation. “You can’t really declare yourself a successful artist – you need affirmation from the outside. I’m so grateful that my messages have been heard, and that the care that I’ve put into bringing more culture, nature, creativity, expression, healing and light into the world through the gift of art is being honored.”

For more about Frimer and her art, visit lindafrimer.ca.

The resilience of survivors

Peter Suedfeld and his mother. Taken at Vajdahunyad Castle, Budapest, Hungary, circa 1939/40. (photo from Peter Suedfeld)

Dr. Peter Suedfeld has devoted his life to the study of how human beings adapt to and cope with challenge, stress and danger. Yet it was many years into his work that he acknowledged his choice of academic pursuit may be related to his personal life history as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Suedfeld, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of British Columbia, will deliver the keynote address at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s community-wide Yom Hashoah commemoration at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver on May 4.

Through the years, he has often been asked if his research was influenced by his family’s experience in the Holocaust.

His mother was murdered at Auschwitz; his father survived Mauthausen. Suedfeld was a hidden child in Budapest, living as a Christian in an orphanage run by the International Red Cross.

“My answer always used to be no,” he said, “because my research for a long, long time was fairly straightforward experimental psychology, cognition, perception, memory, things like that.”

But, when he was interviewed for the VHEC’s survivor testimony project, he “put it all together,” he said. “I started to think that maybe there really is a connection, because almost all of my research – not quite all, but most of it – has to do with how people adapt under unusual, extreme, challenging, sometimes traumatic environments and situations.”

His early work focused on sensory deprivation, looking at how removal of external stimuli affects things like cognition, studying astronauts, cosmonauts and people who work in polar research stations.

“I also started looking at people who were under stress because they had to make really important decisions in stressful circumstances, such as political and military leaders,” he said. “I realized that might have had something to do with my own experiences. How do people face unusual, extreme and sometimes dangerous environments – which people who have survived the Holocaust have had to do, including me? But, I want to emphasize that, at the time I was doing this research, I never thought this way. People asked me why I do all these things, and I said something interests me and I do research on it, that’s all, and I have a wide range of interests. But then, I thought maybe this does have something to do with my personal history.”

At the Yom Hashoah event, Suedfeld will reflect on his personal experience, discuss the Holocaust more broadly and then address the issue of the long-term adaptation of survivors of the Holocaust, a topic on which he has conducted a series of studies.

Suedfeld has reviewed the psychological reports written soon after the war about the long-term potential of survivors to survive and thrive.

“In general, what I found is that the early reports of psychologists and psychiatrists about how permanently damaged survivors are were, to put it bluntly, wrong,” he said. “Yes, of course, some people were permanently damaged and some people could never put their life back together again. But there are a lot of people who did put their lives together or build new ones, who were quite resilient and still are, did well in their occupation or in education if they were young when they came here, have family lives that are certainly no less happy than anybody else’s, are proud of their kids and grandkids if they have any, don’t think about the Holocaust all the time, don’t let it ruin their life.”

Many survivors, he said, have some post-traumatic stress, but not post-traumatic stress disorder. “Disorder means it really interferes with normal life,” he said. “And very few have that.”

Reviewing the early literature and knowing what he knows from personal experience and acquaintance with many survivors, Suedfeld is more surprised by the early negative prognoses than by the remarkable resilience of survivors.

“What did surprise me was the negativity of the scientific reports, which overlooked or ignored or never got to see any of the people who were so resilient,” he said. “There is now a substantial and rapidly growing literature showing not only resilience but post-traumatic growth and people’s strength instead of just emphasizing the weakness. And, again, that’s not to deny by any means that there are some people who were so terribly affected that they haven’t recovered, but that is not the norm.”

Suedfeld also cautioned that every experience of survivors is unique.

“We talk about the Shoah as though everybody had pretty much the same experience,” he said. “I want to bring home to people that that is also a mistaken idea, that people experienced very different things, all of which are lumped under the label of Holocaust or Shoah, but that’s an incredibly wide diversity of experiences to which an incredibly wide diversity of people responded in an incredibly wide, diverse way, so you cannot talk about survivors or victims as an undifferentiated lump. They’re not.”

Pat Johnson is a communications and development consultant to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, as well as a member of the Independent’s editorial board. This article first appeared in the VHEC publication Zachor.